Academic Humanizer

Academic Humanizer

Improve academic prose by removing observable writing defects, not by imitating imperfection or optimizing an authorship detector. Preserve the author's facts, argument, uncertainty, and disciplinary voice. This skill does not guarantee how any reader or detector will classify a text.

Portability

This skill is agent-agnostic. Its core behavior is defined by SKILL.md and references/; Python is optional and supports reproducible diagnostics.

• Resolve <skill-dir> from the directory containing this SKILL.md.
• Let <python> mean an available Python 3 launcher, such as python3, py -3, or python.
• Let <input-file> mean a user-authorized local text file. Quote paths that contain spaces and use the host shell's path separator.
• Do not assume a fixed skill root, home directory, shell, operating system, agent name, or path separator.
• agents/openai.yaml is optional interface metadata. Core behavior does not depend on a particular agent runtime.
• If Python is unavailable, skip the scripts and apply the same contracts directly.

Load the operating references

Read these before drafting or editing:

1. Semantic contract for claim preservation, locked spans, deletion safety, and the internal claim ledger.
2. Terminology contract for canonical terms, declared aliases, coined names, intentional distinctions, and the internal terminology ledger. Always load it for multi-span or manuscript-level work.
3. Global pattern contract for the local-to-document audit, distribution map, scope limits, and whole-document repair. Always load it for multi-sentence work.
4. Academic whitelist for protected scholarly forms in both languages.
5. Contrast logic for false-opposition triage in English and Chinese. Always load it; this is a cross-language semantic rule.
6. Route once by the majority language of editable prose, then read exactly one: English rules or Chinese rules.

Read worked examples on first use, after changing a rule, or whenever fact preservation, contrast, or over-correction is uncertain. Read metrics specification before running scripts/metrics.py; its output is descriptive evidence only.

Supported operations

• generate: draft from user-supplied claims, outline, data, and sources.
• detect: identify high-confidence defects without rewriting.
• rewrite: minimally revise supplied prose; this is the default when the user asks to de-AI or humanize text.
• edit: apply the same minimal revisions to a named file.

Do not create another routing tree for paper section or discipline. Methods, Results, Discussion, reviewer responses, and grants use the same contracts; the whitelist handles legitimate register differences. Ask one direct question only when the requested genre changes what counts as acceptable and context does not resolve it.

Language route

Route on editable prose, excluding fenced code, formulas, block quotations, and a trailing reference list. Use orthographic tokens: each CJK character is one token and each contiguous Latin word is one token. This keeps embedded terms such as Transformer or ImageNet from outweighing the Chinese sentence around them:

r = CJK tokens / (CJK tokens + Latin word tokens)

• r >= 0.5: Chinese branch.
• r < 0.5: English branch.
• No countable prose: stop and ask for text or an intended output language.

English terms in Chinese prose and Chinese terms in English prose remain verbatim. If Python is available and the route is genuinely unclear, optionally run <python> "<skill-dir>/scripts/metrics.py" "<input-file>" --route. Routing is internal and never appears in the clean artifact.

Single arbitration order

Earlier rows win. References may elaborate this table but must not define a second priority order.

Examples of conflict resolution:

• A style rule suggests adding a number, mechanism, baseline, or limitation that is absent from the source: C1 blocks the addition.
• A leak and a result share one sentence: C0 removes only the process phrase; C1 and C5 preserve the result and its relation to adjacent sentences.
• A coined method name drifts across the abstract, body, and caption: C3 restores the canonical term after C1 and C2 confirm that the referent and spans permit it.
• A passive sentence is conventional in Methods: C4 blocks stylistic activation.
• A contrast pattern is present but its two concrete claims lack surrounding evidence: C1 blocks automatic deletion; mark it uncertain in diagnostic output.
• One dash, triad, connective, or emphatic sentence has a clear function: C4-C6 protect it. Repeated functionless instances may activate C6 after a distribution audit, while C1-C5 still constrain every repair.

Workflow

1. Read the complete editable scope

Read all supplied title, abstract, body sections, captions, tables, appendices, and supplementary prose before changing anything. Identify which parts are editable and which are evidence or protected context. Separate content requirements from style/process instructions. For generation, treat only supplied claims, data, citations, and explicitly marked hypotheticals as content.

2. Lock spans and build the evidence and terminology ledgers

Apply the semantic and terminology contracts. Build the claim/evidence ledger with source-to-output mappings and provenance status for:

• numbers, units, entities, citations, datasets, methods, and study design;
• negation, comparison direction and baseline;
• association, causation, prediction, and attribution;
• modality, uncertainty, limitations, population, time, and scope.

The editable draft establishes what the author currently says; it does not by itself prove that a cited paper, result, quotation, or factual premise exists. Mark unsupported evidence assertions as draft-only and preserve or flag them instead of silently treating them as verified or extending the argument from them.

Build a separate terminology ledger for scientific concepts, especially newly coined methods, modules, losses, metrics, datasets, and task names. Record:

• concept_id, canonical_term, and the span that defines or first formally names the concept;
• declared allowed_forms, including full-name/abbreviation pairs and necessary grammatical or bilingual mappings;
• observed_variants, distinguish_from, and resolution status.

Use explicit user terminology first, then formal definitions, then the first unambiguous formal naming. Frequency alone never selects the canonical term. Keep both ledgers internal unless the user asks for an audit trail.

3. Run the local candidate pass

1. Find process leakage and tool residue.
2. Audit terminology across the complete editable scope. Classify each apparent variation as declared form, same-concept drift, intentional distinction, protected mention, or uncertain identity.
3. Triage contrast candidates as protected, unsupported rhetorical, or uncertain using contrast-logic.md.
4. Apply the routed language rules to identify candidates with three questions:
   • Load: does the wording carry a claim or logical relation?
   • Support: can each claim be traced to the source bundle?
   • Patterning: is the defect mechanical, vacuous, or reinforced by other signals in the same span?

A lone word or sentence form is not enough to infer authorship or poor quality. It can still be a local defect when it adds an unsupported claim, false relation, or empty evaluation. Multiple weak signals in one span form one finding, not several duplicate findings.

4. Build the distribution map and run the global pass

For multi-sentence input, map candidates by section, paragraph, sentence, position, and rhetorical function using global-pattern-contract.md. Inspect:

• sentence-initial discourse markers and punctuation such as dashes;
• contrast scaffolds, parallel triads, flat enumeration, and exhaustive listing;
• repeated sentence/paragraph templates and recurring paragraph closures;
• sentence-length sequence and rhythm within each functional section;
• unsupported certainty, elevation, and aphoristic peak saturation.

Use within-document evidence and section function; never apply a universal count or ratio. A distribution map supports findings only about the supplied editable scope; an excerpt cannot support a whole-manuscript judgment. Optional metrics produce a distribution map, not an authorship or quality judgment.

5. Classify before editing

Classify each finding as local defect, distributional defect, functional/protected, or uncertain. A distributional defect requires both repetition or positional regularity and redundant rhetorical function. Several valid ablation contrasts, method steps, reported metrics, or theorem consequences remain protected even when their surface forms repeat.

6. Make the smallest coherent edit

• Remove process-layer text while retaining any content in the same sentence.
• Normalize confirmed same-concept drift to the ledger's canonical term across every editable occurrence, including captions and tables. Preserve declared abbreviations and grammatical forms; do not replace protected mentions.
• Keep terms separate when they name distinct concepts. If identity is uncertain, preserve the text and ask or flag it outside the clean artifact.
• Prefer subtraction or direct wording when a phrase carries no proposition.
• Use concrete material only when it already exists in the source.
• Preserve both claims in additive forms such as not only X but also Y when X and Y are supported; removing the construction must not remove either claim.
• Preserve or flag concrete negative claims when evidence is insufficient to decide whether the contrast is real. Do not silently erase them.
• Repair the document as a system: remove redundant scaffolding, retain each supported proposition and relation, and vary syntax only when argument function warrants it. Do not randomize sentence length or replace one repeated template with another repeated template.
• Reorganize flat enumeration only when the source already supplies a hierarchy. Never invent categories merely to make a list appear elegant.
• Preserve an unverified citation or evidence claim in rewrite/edit mode and flag it outside the artifact; do not strengthen it or use it to generate new claims.
• Leave already competent prose unchanged.

7. Run the whole-manuscript terminology gate

Scan all editable sections together after revision. Every scientific concept must use its canonical term or a declared allowed form. Verify that coined names are unchanged after their formal introduction, captions and tables match the body, bilingual mappings are declared, and distinct concepts remain distinct. Any unresolved identity is a stop/flag result, not an automatic normalization.

8. Run the whole-document pattern gate

Rebuild the distribution map after editing. Check that redundant clusters, mechanical paragraph templates, uniform rhetorical peaks, and unsupported certainty were resolved without erasing functional repetition or creating a new dominant pattern. If the supplied scope is shorter than the claimed scope, report the limitation and do not claim a whole-manuscript pass.

9. Run the second-pass semantic and style gate

Re-read source and output side by side. The output fails if any answer is no:

1. Does every output claim map to the source bundle?
2. Does every material source claim remain?
3. Are numbers, negation, modality, causal strength, baseline, attribution, and scope unchanged?
4. Are locked spans byte-for-byte unchanged?
5. Does the terminology ledger show one canonical term per concept, with only declared forms and intentional distinctions remaining?
6. Are cited evidence, quotations, and factual premises supported by supplied or verified sources, or explicitly marked draft-only outside the artifact?
7. Did the edit preserve academic register and logical relations?
8. Did the whole-document pattern gate pass without threshold chasing?
9. Is the artifact free of process labels, editor narration, placeholders filled by guesswork, and tool residue?
10. Would a zero-edit result have been more accurate? If yes, restore the source.

Run metrics only as an optional residual scan. A metric never overrides this gate.

Output contract

• generate / rewrite: return the clean artifact by default, with no routing line, score, checklist, leak line, or editor preface.
• detect: return findings grouped by severity and scope (local or distributional). Each finding includes an exact source quote, rule ID, location/distribution evidence, reason, and one of change, keep, or uncertain.
• edit: edit only the requested file, then summarize changes outside it.
• Provide diagnostics after the artifact only when the user explicitly asks for them. Clearly separate diagnostics from text intended for the manuscript.
• Use verified counts only. Never invent a count or aesthetic grade.

Stop conditions

Stop and ask instead of guessing when:

• the requested rewrite requires a missing fact, citation, comparison, or source;
• a concrete contrast cannot be validated from the available context;
• the requested generation, verification, or downstream conclusion depends on a citation, result, quotation, or factual premise whose existence or provenance cannot be established from the source bundle;
• two labels may refer to the same scientific concept but the manuscript does not establish their identity, or no canonical term can be grounded;
• the input is mostly a protected quotation, formula, or reference list;
• the user requests a whole-document judgment but supplies only an excerpt;
• the requested language is neither English nor Chinese;
• the request seeks detector evasion or circumvention of a disclosure policy.

Do not invent specifics, personal experience, citations, data, mechanisms, baselines, or limitations to make prose sound more human. Do not casualize academic writing merely to make it look less generated.